15 May 2016
Kuwait - Global Investment House (Global) announced today that two funds managed by its Private Equity Asset Management team has distributed USD35 million to its investors, raising the total amount distributed by the Private Equity Funds to around USD510 million since inception in 2004. 

The distributions are result of successful exits from two portfolio companies effectively managed and operationally transformed by Global Opportunistic Fund I and Direct Investment Fund. The first exit was from a leading textile manufacturing and retail company operating in the Saudi market, and the second from a unique education asset in the United Arab Emirates. These exits were in line with our strategy and road map communicated earlier with our clients. 

Ihsan Sancay, Senior Vice President of Private Equity commented: "It is another important milestone for our Private Equity team and a result of years of hard work and dedication. These distributions come at challenging times for the regional capital markets which are witnessing low liquidity and weak capital investments."

It is worth noting that funds managed by Global have undergone a successful operational turnaround in many of their key investments and have put most of the portfolio companies back on positive growth trajectory after a challenging period for Middle Eastern private equity industry. In the last five years, the team has completed four investments in their funds, including one investment in India and three in Turkey, which also makes them one of the most active investors in the Turkish market.

Global Opportunistic Fund I was the first conventional private equity fund launched by Global in 2005. The Fund was mandated to do Pre-IPO and Private Equity Investments without any industry limit, focused on investing only in the GCC and made investments in 5 countries across industries. The Direct Investment Fund is Sharia compliant and also focuses on the GCC markets.

Sancay concluded: "Our new strategy adopted has paid back. Through a more efficient active involvement and value creation within our portfolio companies, we were able to grow our portfolio companies' operational profitability during such challenging period in the region."

-End-

For further information:
Moustafa Zantout
Senior Vice President
Marketing & Communications
Global Investment House
Tel: +965 2295 1615
Fax: +965 2295 1638
E-mail: mzantout@global.com.kw

© Press Release 2016